Sunday, May 31, 2009

I am in love with Guiding Light by Gina K Designs! It has been so much fun and it has also inspired me to make some super fun male cards.

I used this sketch that was done for another of the Stamping Out Alzheimer's challenges. This has been such a fun few days of challenges. I only wish I had time to get them all done! Since today was the last day, I will be adding more and more of my projects to my blog. I just couldn't get them all up here and typed up in time LOL! Here is my card

Oh, I am also in love with Guidelines 2 from Papertrey Ink. I love that it makes dsp in any color combo I need. This card is going to be for my brother in laws birthday. This is the one that is married to Amy who is a stampin up demonstrator, so I had to make a good one LOL!

I stamped and colored in my boat and then used the versa mark and clear embossing powder. After, I used my spounge daubers and ink to make this fun scene. It really is quite fun to put these scene cards together.

Hello everyone! I am still making cards and gifts like a mad woman LOL! There is a fabulous challenge site that has so many give aways I can't seem to stop. On a great note, I have all of my birthday cards done in June and I am working on July. I love being ahead.

Here is a sketch challenge from Taylored Expressions on the Stamping out Alzheimer's site. I am also going to enter this card in the GKD challenge for her latest release. That is one generous woman! Here is my take

I really like how this turned out! It is for my Dad's birthday. He is going to love it. I finally broke out my versa mark pen and did some embossing. Wow that was super fun. I then spounged the rest. It really turned out fun.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Okay I am so late on my Mojo Monday, but I got it done yeah!!! This was also a challenge at the Stamping out Alzheimer's site. You all know me, this will also work for this month's Gina K release challenge to make masculine card. Here is my take on the challenge

It ended up really monochormatic, except for the gray and brown on the main image. I added the brad, ribbon and stiching as fun details. Hopefully it won't be too much for a male card. This is for my cousin Chirs who lives in Hawaii. I think he will like it and the nautical theme will work for him.

I acutally won this set, Guiding Light from a Stamp TV challenge. Isn't that the best? Gina is fabulous and I adore this set. Wahooo!!!

Friday, May 29, 2009

LOL! This card was so much fun to make and it is a combo of Mega GKD challenges. If you don't already LOVE Gina K Designs, go and check out their latest release WOWZIERS! If only I could win the lottery LOL! This card is for 4 Gina K challenges. First her technique challenge this week was about paper piecing . Then the pot luck Friday challenge for this week was to use dsp paper and texture. Then last night at the release party there was a challenge to celebrate the children in our lives.

Lastly if you don't know about the Stamping out Alzheimers site run over quick. There are so many companies involved with this mega fundraising challenge. I believe there is over $5,000 raised right now. Isn't that fabulous!!! Gina K also has a sketch challenge on there and here is the sketch. Here is my card

I also wanted to show you a close up of how the seal was attached. I made a spring out of some crafting wire I had and then attached it to the seal. He bounces all over and Izzy loves it. So needless to say this is for my little Izzy. My Mother's Day card had a fun skunk on it that wiggled around and it gave me this fun idea for a card. I was having such a hard time with this sketch from Melaine. Once the challenge about making a card for a child in your life came it all came together quickly. If you haven't checked out the Stamp TV epsidoe on paper piecing, go over now LOL! I never thought to use the quickie glue pen for paper piecing, but oh the difference it made. Those little yellow stars went down in a snap and I usually have the worst time with little images. LOVE IT.

Can you see the scoring I did in the background. It was to add texture, but also I thought it looked like the curtains at a circus. Perhaps I am out there on that LOL! Anyway, go check out that Alzheimer's site it really is fabulous and it will only be going on until May 31st.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

I love challenges. I don't love leaving on vacation and falling behind on challenges LOL! This is for the last Viva La Verve in May that I had to do. I love that this was use all of your favorites on it. Super fun. Here is the sketch. Here is my take on the challenge.

I really adore the colors on this card. The stamps are new to me. I won 3 Hero Arts stamp sets a while back and I am just cracking them open now. Can you believe I waited that long? Crazy I know LOL!

This is for a great friend who I don't get to see enough. I really adore her and wanted to send her a little something in the mail. I have also made this for a fun challenge at Stamping out Alzheirmers that was to use at least 3 buttons. I adore PTI buttons, so I wanted to try this one for sure.

I had to share another fun photo from vacation. This was Izzy with her first sand castle. She had help from Mom and Dad. She then became a sand castle maniac LOL! This is another of my cards for the Viva La Verve May challenge. I love their little twists as it always gets me thinking. This one was to use only shades of blue and green and any neutral. I had such a fun time with this. It also worked well for the Stamp TV technique challenge of paper pieceing and also the Stamp TV color challenge which was shades of blue, blue/green or blue/purple.

Here is my take on the challenge

I'm not usually a blue and green sort of girl, but this was tons of fun. I really like the way this turned out and it will be for our nephew. He is early teens, but who wouldn't love this little guy? I colored him in with a blender pen and reinkers. The balloons are paper pieced. Is he not the cutest little guy ever LOL!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I am so happy to be back it is hard to express it in words. My Dad said tonight when we were visiting that is Grandfather would always say "Take you time getting there and then hurry back." That is how I felt on this trip. We had a great time and Izzy LOVED the beach and ocean, but we were all so ready to be home. Here is one of my favs from the trip. This was Izzy's first time on the beach and we didn't even have time to go and get the swim suits on. She wore her cute glasses every time on the beach and it was too stinking cute for words. I am so excited to get back to stamping I made 4 cards tonight. I am sure I will be the same ball of activity for the next few days as well. There are so many fun challenges that I am behind on, not to mention all of my Birthday cards for the fam. I am not even done with June and I feel behind already, LOL! I have 3 of the 4 cards done for Viva La Verve challenges for the month of May. I need to get them all up by tomorrow. Here is the first and as you see we had to use some inspiration from our house. I used the Dawn's color combo which happened to work great with the new pottery barn for kids magazine that came in the mail today. Tons of cute colors that worked reminded me of both of these challenges.

Here is Dawn's color combo for this week. Stinking cute don't you think? Okay, here is my take on this weeks challenges.

I love it!!! Okay this was also for another challenge on the Stamping Out Alzheimer's challenges found here brought to us by Kitchen Sink Stamps. If you haven't given your donation and checked out this site, head over right now!!! There are so many fabulous ways to win and donate to a wonderful cause.

I made this for our friend Kelly who we just visited. She shared that they had a miscarraige at 4 months. They hadn't said anything to us becuase they really wanted to surprise us when we came. I felt so bad for her and she is so stinking sweet that I wanted to send a nice card. This by the way was made with my fun stamp set that I won from Gina K Designs called Not Forgotten and I think it is the best stamp set for tough situations.

Hello everyone! We should be on our way home right now. I just wanted to leave you with some eye candy. This is an older challenge that for some reason never got published LOL! Hope you enjoy it.

Another marathon card. I just go from one blog to another and then BAM my idea starts to come together. Here is the Kristen Werner Color Inspiration #43 challenge. Instantly I remembered my Au Chocolate dsp from Stampin Up and now I have the background paper under control. Then here comes StampinTV. It is absolutely fabulous! Not only is the quality the highest, but it is also a wonderful source of challenges. This was the first sketch challenge. I loved how it was just a center piece and needed to come up with a main image that would also serve as my sentiment. Then BAM Melaine's stamp set Little Tees.

Here is my take on the color and card inspiration.

This is for my Mom. Can you believe that I am that far ahead this year. Chalk up my prepared style up to all of these challenges. Where have I been all of this time. This is about as fun as it gets.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Hello everyone! I am so glad I got everything finished up before we left for vacation for the blog hop. I am just loving this fun night with all of the yummy PTI eye candy! It really gets me ready to shop on the 15th, LOL. This month the challenge was to use yellow. It really got me wanting for more shades of yellow from PTI. I really try to stay with PTI only when I create for this challenge, so I would love some more shades wink, wink. Here is a close up of my creation. Can I just say I LOVE star prints and everything that goes with it. This is the stacked star image that I cut out many times in different colors and then ran through the xyron and blinged it up LOL!

Here is the complete card.

I losely based this on last weeks SFYTT sketch from Jenn. I really liked the circle images and it was tons of fun to work with. This beauty is for a cousin that just graduated high school. I thought this set was fabulous for such an occasion. I also used my essential glue pad to rim all of the circles with bling. Have a fabulous day and I can't wait to see all of the fun creations. I am not sure I will be going around until we get back, but I will check out all of the fun yellow creations.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Hi everyone! We are in "Lordia" as Izzy would call it right now. This is an old post that never got published for some reason, so I wanted to share it. Hope you are all having a great Memorial Day weekend with your families.

I am addicted to sketches and this is another Stamps and Smiles sketch. Not only am I addicted to sketches, but I also love the idea of getting free stamps. This contest has already passed, but the sketch is still a hoot. Here is my take for the sketch. Can you believe it? I love this Stampin Up set, Best of Cluck, so much that I know it will have a home here forever. There just isn't a better how are you doing set than this in my opinion. I of course and biased as I am born and raised on a farm and therefore partial to anything with farm animals. Another thing I am working on ~ using my supplies. This is the first time I have used kiwi kiss stripped ribbon and I have had it for months. I know the travesty.

This card actually went to a wonderful man who works for my Dad and just had open heart surgery. He is a carpenter and he is always the first to help out.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Well hopefully when you read this we are off to "Lordia" as Izzy has lovingly renamed Flordia. We will be staying in Clearwater. I say hopefully because as of Wednesday Izzy still had an ear infection in her right ear. We are going to make the final decision this morning after we see how her night went. She has been on antiboticis since Sunday and hopefully everything will be just fine if we end up going. Needless to say I would really appreciate any prayers you could send out way.

Onto the fun card. This was for the CPS Sketch #116 Here is a close up and I am so sorry it is blury. I just wanted to show how fun and sparkly the accents are. How can you not bling up a Bella?

The complete card

I had a hard time with the bottom strip of circles. I ended up adding some bling at the bottom. I really liked the end result it is so girly. This is for my cousin Emily's birthday. I think she will really love it.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

We are all feeling a bit better today. I got some packing done yesterday and today we need to finish packing and our last minute shopping. Why is it so much work to go on vacation LOL!

The other things I am working on is my work of course and also finishing up some sketches and challenges so I have more cards done and some things to share while I am gone. This card was for 2 challenges at Stamp TV. STVSC12 which is the sketch challenge you see below and STVPF13 which was to use only scraps.

I still had a lot of my supplies out from my last card that used Kristina's color challenge and I really liked how that worked together, so I used those scraps and added a few more.

Here is my take on the 2 challenges. What do you think? I really like the more mustard/baja breeze combo. I never would have put them together and I really like the look. I think it turned out fun, masculine and not too fall like. For whatever reasons when I do masculine cards I always feel like they look like a fall card. I have no idea what that is about LOL!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Okay everyone, I have to share how much I love guidelines 2. I just got it and it was worth all of the wait. This was my first try and it turned out fine. I really want to try more combos and get a feel for each of the images. Needless to say I am so stinking excited to try and play with the possibilities.

I was so glad I had it when I saw this color challenge from Kristina Werner. Wowziers! This was really outside my norm, but it looked perfect for a male color combo. Here is my take on the color combo.

I am going to send this one off to Randy's Grandpa in Virginia. I think he will like the simplicity of the card. It was really quick and easy to put together. We are both home today not feeling well. We are going to pack and put winter clothes away today. Tomorrow is our last minute shopping day and then we are off.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Have you ever had an idea in your mind that you need to get onto paper and you can't do anything else until that has happened. That is where I was at until my new Papertrey Ink package came in. I had their apple set on my list for about a year and finally had a scrapbook page that moved it to the "need" list LOL! Can you even believe that I ordered on the 15th and my package was here on the 18th WOWZIERS!!!!!!

I love Stamp TV and all of the challenges that are on there. Ericka Martin does the scrapbook pages and she is fabulous! Here is STVSCR12 Here is a close up of some of the details on the page. I love the new champagine versa mark ink I got from PTI. Can you see the small flecks of bling in the background. It is so beautiful and subtle. It is a fabulous look. Can you believe that I finally got my very own guidelines 2 stamps set and after drooling over the dsp paper eveyone made with the set the first thing I whip out is the big background grid LOL! I also love the chocolate buttons. They have such character and shine. Isn't that fabulous!

Here is my finished project. Okay now that I look at it, it is not finished. I forgot to put the date on the picture, but I will add that. This was in October 2007.

Izzy was just a year old and she was eating her first apple from our apple tree siting outside with Grandma and Grandpa was there in between bringing loads of corn from the field. She was so relaxed that day munching on her first apple from the tree. It is a memory I will cherish and I thought it was perfect for the verse as well.

I love the felt alphabet and the puffy brown letters as well. It was a ton of fun to put together. The prayers and verse idea came from this fabulous site called Faith Sisters. They are doing a whole serries called "My prayers for you" and I really love it. It is the first thing that got me scrapbooking my little one. One of the gals at my Bible study mentioned leaving a legacy for her daughter when she passed away. It really got me thinking and as you all know I am not a speller, so writing a journal was out, but I loved putting a scrapbook together about my prayers for Izzy.

We leave for vacation on Friday and I have no packing done, Izzy has a double ear infection and I feel not good at all. I went to be last night at 7 and I am heading to bed at 8 tonight trying to kick this quickly.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

I am already off track with Father's Day cards. I have 2 of the 6 done. The goal was to getall of the cards done before I left for vacation, but I'm not sure that will happen.

Last night we had the Mother/Daughter Banquet at church. It is always such a special night! We had to leave early because Izzy had an accident, but it was still a ton of fun. This is the only shot of the two of us that was good yesterday. Here is the face Izzy had for pretty much every picture at the church. She thinks she is hilarious!!!

It was a fun beach theme and my good friend Christy is the one who put everything together for the fun night. Even though I missed the entertainment, I knew I needed to make her a special card. Wouldn't you know when I got home Dawn's next color challenge was up! It seemed like the perfect opportunity for my fun card I needed to make.

Isn't that fun! I am not sure that there really are any white chicks with pink beaks, but hello creative license LOL! It is hard to see in the picture, but that chick is 100% glitter and bling. I love it!!! The damask that is behind the sentiment is stamped in Berry Sorbet and then stamped off once, so it still qualifies for the color combo :)

I am so excited that I can get Christy's thank you off tomorrow! It is nice to be punctual and since I had some free time last night it worked out well.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

We have had so much water lately that it feels like we just can't get dry. We are really getting excited about Flordia! We are 5 days away!!!

Here is a fun Father's Day card using a few challenges. This is going to be for my Dad. I used the color challenge from Stamp TV. It was to use Black, Red and White and any shades of those colors so pink and grey are just fine as well. I also used the Card Pattern Sketch #14. Here is some of the detail work. I know it is blury, but it is the best I can do right now. I hand stiched the butterfly trail. I really liked how it looked so I stiched around the sentiment as well.

Here is the complete card.

I think it turned out cute!!! My Dad will really like it. I had to add the button detail since it was looking really plain. I have a hard time keeping the emblishement simple for the male cards. It was all I could do to not add some bling on that butterfly LOL!

Work has been such a blessing lately, but it is sure cutting into my stamping time LOL! I have to write a contract for 3 lots today and then we have Mother/Daughter banquet at the church, so we will see how much stamping I get done.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Hello everyone!!! I am so gald to be back stamping. The potty training is going fabulous, knock on wood, LOL! We are leaving for a trip down to Flordia next Friday and we busy packing and getting ready. It is an early start, but I have to get my business and family together, so I try and start early.

There was another realization recently. Father's Day is less than a month away and I have NO cards done! I have 6 cards to make, so I need to get on the stick. To be honest, I have a hard time with masculine cards so I put them off. I LOVE the newest Stamp TV epsiode on Embossing Foil. Yet another thing I love about Stamp TV when you see a new technique, they have a challenge that you can enter to win a stamp set just for using the new technique! Here is the challenge thread for embossed foil. I also have to brag a bit on Gina K. I was lucky enough to win a color challenge and she had my free set in my hot little hands just a few days later!!! I was so impressed by her speed and generosity.

I have never done this before, but it sure got my creative juices going for Father's Day. I have had the set King of the grill since last year and it remained uninked! Can you even believe that LOL! I also thought it would work really well with the Mojo Monday sketch #86.

Here is a close up of the foil embossing detail on my card. Isn't that fun! I am loving this look and I think it is really fun for male cards.Here is my full card. My hubby is actually handy, but it does seem like we have lots of opps moments before we have a whaooo done. He also has a really good since of humor, so I think he will like it. I embossed the foil with one of the stampin up embossing folders. I used the regular aluminum foil weight. Gina suggested the heavy duty, but I didn't have any of that on hand. I found it worked just fine, but I had to put a piece of paper under it so it didn't cut through rather than embossing.

Izzy thought this was BEAUTIFUL!!!! She quickly took my first try and put it on her desk for one of her cards, so I am sure it will be on her card for her Dad as well. My goal is to have most of my Father's Day cards done before I head off to vacation.

Oh, does anyone have any suggestions on how to work the car seat and the rental car. I would assume you take your car seat with you, but do you check it like checked luggage or do you bring it with you to the gate? Do you have special seats that you can roll (I saw it once and haven't been able to find it, but it looked fabulous). Do you have a cover so the car seat won't get beat up? I really need some help LOL!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Hi everyone. I had an interesting Mother's Day today. One of the things I noticed is that I really need to get back to the gym!!!!

I have a closing tomorrow and it is a really neat widow who is selling the home she shared with her late husband. I have no idea how she is coping with everything, but she is. I was fortuante enough to win a free stamp set from Gina and Stamp TV. Can you even believe I had it in my hot little hands on Friday. It was such perfect timing as I got Not Forgotten and it is I think the perfect stamp set!

I have also combined a few challenges again LOL! I used the newest Card Positioning Systems sketch #115 and the My Time to Inspire MTTI01 Here is my take Isn't that fun! I loved how it all turned out. I used the Papertrey Ink dsp Black & White Basics dsp. Lauren showed how you can use copics to color in the flowers and although I don't have copics, I LOVED the look. I used my SU markers to make this happen. It looks great, but it really took some time to do. Okay not a ton of time, but those little leaves seemed to take forever LOL!

She is a scrapbooker, so I am sure she will like this. I have another card to finish up tonight, but it will not go up until tomorrow.